Gordon Campbell: On The Fall Of Assad, And The New Dylan Movie

Hold the champagne. Ugly and brutal as it was, the Assad regime may have been the lesser evil for Syria, the Middle East region and the rest of the world. The last time an extremist Sunni fighting force – called Islamic State (IS) – exerted control over large swathes of Syria and northern Iraq, their rule proved to be even more brutal and oppressive than the Taliban in Afghanistan. IS then became a global magnet for externists, and a springboard for anti-Western violence. People were killed in Parisian cafes and nightclubs by IS recruits.